


Interludes

by Melody_Jade



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Early in Canon, Feast of the Exceptional Rose (Fallen London), Other, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22419505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Jade/pseuds/Melody_Jade
Summary: Five times you shared a bed with the Last Constable.
Relationships: The Last Constable/Player (Fallen London)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Interludes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [APgeeksout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/gifts).



* * *

The first time you invited the Last Honest Constable back to your home was a few weeks after you had first made her acquaintance. That day, you met her at Caligula's Coffee House, at the table you had come to think of hers. Her eyes were bloodshot, her posture slumped. "How long has it been since you had a good night of sleep?" you asked her.

That was the first time you brought her back home, to your cramped attic room in a respectable lodgings house.

"I don't do relationships," she told you, even as she climbed up the stairs with you to your room on the top floor.

You nodded your understanding. "Just to sleep," you assured her as you opened your door.

She looked around at your small and sparsely decorated room, but didn't say much.

You woke up in the middle of the night, startled awake by her rough jerk. She was breathing harshly, her body trembling slightly. "Just a nightmare," you told her soothingly, and held her until both of you fell back asleep.

She was already gone when you woke up the next morning to the sounds of an awakening London, leaving behind only a hastily scribbled note saying, 'thank you'.

* * *

She was skittish when you saw her next, the vulnerability you had glimpsed that night hidden again beneath a cold and hard exterior. You didn't question it, just asked her about her latest cases and listened as she told you about them.

When you bumped into her again at the coffee house, a few weeks later, she was visibly exhausted, a nearly-empty cup of coffee cradled in her trembling hands.

You invited her back home again, not sure if she would accept.

To your surprise, she did.

* * *

She kept coming back after that.

However, she still kept you at a distance. There were still parts of her that you didn't understand.

Until that night when you had to stop her from beating up the Cheery Man's lieutenant.

Afterwards, in the hushed darkness of your room, as you held her in your arms on your bed, she whispered to you in halting words about her family. In return, you spoke to her about the past that you left behind, and of your hopes and ambitions for the future.

Neither of you slept that night, as both of you whispered secrets and memories to one another until a new day began and the streets were filled with the calls of costermongers and the sounds of carriages and horses.

She gave you a small smile and touched your hands before she left, giving it a light squeeze of wordless thanks.

* * *

But she wasn’t meant for this idyllic moments of peace, and you both knew she had to leave when her enemies came for her just a few months later.

That night, she showed up on your doorstep, the first time she'd ever come to your place without your invitation first. "Thank you," she told you, as she held your hands again. "You’re a good friend, the best I've ever had, and I'll miss you so much."

She was going to leave in a steamer in the morning, and there was so much to say and yet no time to say it at all. You could only sit together on your small bed, both lost for words. You pulled her into a hug, clinging onto her. “Please be safe," you told her, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. "Please stay alive."

She hugged you back just as tightly.

* * *

There were only scattered letters from her for a long time afterwards, but you never forgot her. How could you, when she was one of your first true friends here in the Neath?

You never thought you would ever see her again.

Until one night, many months after she left on a steamer, when you see her again at one of the many parties during the Feast of the Rose.

Her eyes are still so blue, but there is barely hidden desperation in them as well. You have so many questions you want to ask, but you know she doesn’t want you to ask them. So you swallow the words down, and instead, you share a meal with her, dance with her, laugh with her.

As the night grows late, her hand finds yours. "Take me back to your place," she says.

You have moved recently to a larger place. She looks around your new place as she did in your old room a long time ago, and her gaze settles on the fish bowl at the center of your dining table, still containing the goldfish she gave you before she left. “You kept it!” she exclaims, smiling at you, a bright unguarded smile that makes her look so much more youthful and carefree.

Caught up in the moment, you kiss her.

To your surprise, she kisses you back. Her lips are soft and warm.

After a moment, you draw back. "Are you sure?" you ask her.

She takes your hand and leads you to your bed.

This night, you don’t just sleep on the same bed as you did on all the other previous nights. Her fierce blue gaze is focused entirely on you as you kiss and touch each other and lose yourselves in each other’s bodies.

You still don’t know why she came back. You don’t even know if she'll still be here the next morning.

But you don’t think about it tonight. This night, this moment, it is for you and her alone.

* * *


End file.
